


Tiny Fondant Handcuffs Really Make the Occasion

by florahart



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bakery AU, Clint doesn't know how to not be a dick sometimes, F/M, Kinktastic gay wedding cakes, Porn Store, Steve's a little innocent, dickpops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 21:55:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9143734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart
Summary: Sometimes, working in an Adult Shop, one has to explain things to newbies.  It's one of the bright spots between general harassment one gets as a girl in a porn store and the unwanted bodily fluids occasionally on the floor.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gsparkle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/gifts).



Usually, in Maria’s experience, creeps that wanted to skulk outside the place were a little more stick-to-the-shadows than this guy, but everything about his body language said he didn’t want to be noticed, and it was kind of freaking her out.

Not really; being hard to freak out was one of the reasons she’d gotten this job over Sharon Carter. 

Still, the vibe was at least vaguely in line with someone either casing the place or casing the people, and sure, it wasn’t like Pornmart (whatever. “Adult shop” with no coherent actual name, and Pornmart conveyed the concept) usually attracted men of 100% savory character, but from the grainy security-feed video, this guy seemed basically clean-cut. Maybe he was just nervous? Well, in any case, she kept one eye on the feed while she updated the inventory log.

Finally, at a few minutes after eleven, he stopped pacing, stared at the door for a few seconds, and pulled on the handle, stepping in and looking around in the too-casual manner of someone who wants to pretend he’s not stressed out by the shelf of animal-theme dildos on the right and the array of floggers on the far wall. 

“Hi,” she said, popping her gum and pushing her pink-streaked hair behind her ear. 

“Hi. So, what time do you guys close, anyway?” He glanced at, then away from, her fake lip piercing. “I mean, will it be long?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Like, never. I don’t know if you know, but people’s sexytimes needs don’t conform to the standard workday all that well.”

He bit his lip, looked at hers again, and sighed. “Okay, damn.”

“You were hoping we were closing?” She considered whether her initial estimate had been right after all. Right at closing someone might lock up; it might be a couple hours or more until someone else showed up... she eyed her piece under the counter and thought about how much she didn’t want to blow her cover for a nervous punk (built, fine, pectorally-blessed punk, but if he was going to try anything, still a punk). Not that she was alone, although he didn’t know that.

“Kind of. See, I have this problem.” 

“Uh-huh.” He wasn’t making any kind of move toward her, keeping his hands in his pockets like everything might bite, so she maintained a neutral approach and waited.

“It’s a, well. I was thinking maybe you could help me out?”

“With...”

“Sex...things?”

Maria snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“Yes, actually.”

“I don’t know if you’ve looked in a mirror, but you don’t look like a guy who needs sex things help.”

The guy legitimately blushed. Maria squashed down the idea that it was adorable as he said, “Well, okay, that’s not fair, maybe I’m shy, but –” he broke off as a regular Maria had had to chase out for jerking off with one of the silk blindfolds last week opened the door, got a look at her, and (wisely) noped out, shuffling away around the corner and probably to the place over on ninth. “...but anyway, I do. Need sex things help.” 

She refocused on the conversation at hand. “Okay, so I’m guessing either this is some kind of joke to amuse me on a slow night – did Sharon send you?”

“Sharon?”

“No?”

“I don’t know a Sharon, I don’t think, so no. Mostly I was hoping someone with some direct experience that could help me with this. I could pay for your time.”

“Uh-huh. So, as a general rule probably you shouldn’t assume a woman who works in a porn store is available to help you with your personal sex needs for pay? As that would be illegal in this state and also probably in general holding a regular late-evening work schedule would probably interfere with a lucrative career in professional dick-sucking.”

“What? Oh. No, I mean, no. I mean, um. Did I introduce myself?”

“Nope.”

“I’m Steve. I own the new bakery?” He threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Maybe you’ve been past it?”

“Nah, I come the other way.” Not true; she was well aware of the neighbors; the new bakery was two blocks up and just the other side of the unofficial dividing line between legit and shady businesses in town.

“Oh. Well you should come by. I mean, I have cake. Donuts. Éclairs. A lot of muffins. Sugar cookies... I do wedding cakes? Which is my problem. It’s not that I’m looking for sex, it’s that I need to decorate a cake.”

Well. That was a new one. “You need to decorate a cake. And this involves some kind of needing help with sex things, so you thought maybe Pornmart was your go-to supply depot?”

“No. I mean, actually, yes, but I’m not planning to requisition Pornmart flour and sugar? Basically it’s that I lack relevant details about certain things and all I’m looking for is a sex toy expert, _not_ for professional, uh, sucking of anything, lucrative or otherwise.”

Maria stared at him for a minute, then made up her mind and pressed the buzzer under the counter. Barton, who was technically not on this job at all but Wu was down with the flu, poked his head out the door to the stock room. “Yeah?”

“Hey, can you keep an eye on the counter for a few minutes? We have a new ...customer that needs some help.”

Clint rubbed his eyes, looking suspiciously like someone who had just been napping (probably true; his recent cases had involved all sorts of crack of dawn shenanigans), and shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Do I need to know a ball gag from a butt plug?”

Maria rolled her eyes. “I think you’ll work it out, and if you don’t, I guess it will be an adventure for someone.” She came around the counter and toward Steve. “So, baker man. What, exactly, can my unique Pornmart skills do to complement your cake-decorating needs?”

Steve sighed. “See, this is why I was hoping you’d be closing. I wanted to explain the issue without anyone maybe interrupting.”

“You came to an adult shop for help with a cake. I’m pretty sure you aren’t going to embarrass yourself any further.” Maria walked toward the break room, assuming Steve would follow.

“You haven’t met me. No, I mean, okay, so I’m just getting started. With the bakery, not the porn.”

“That, you’re an old hand at?” She looked over her shoulder to find him scowling (also adorable, Jesus, Maria, get a grip).

“I don’t think I’m going to dignify that. Anyway, so I have a wedding cake request, and it’s ...nonstandard.”

“Nonstandard how?”

“It’s two guys, and I don’t know –“

“And you figure that definitely means anal beads, leather, whips...?”

“No! I mean, I don’t figure that would inherently be a thing, but they apparently live some kind of, like, _lifestyle_? Their words, not mine. They gave me a list. I have the internet and I have a good imagination, but still, I don’t want to make some kind of my-imagination porno cake for their _wedding_. On principle, but also practically speaking.”

“Practically?” Maria looked over her shoulder again as she opened the break room door, then waved him in. She left the door open halfway, again just in case her assessment was bad and she needed Clint in a hurry, not that he wouldn’t probably check on her in a little while.

“Well, my business is pretty new, and I need the referral. But really I do mean on principle.”

He was so earnest he made her teeth hurt.

“Okay, so I believe you,” she said. “But I’m not sure I can teach you everything there is to know about gay kink in a day...”

He nodded and pulled a crumpled and repeatedly-folded paper out his pocket. “Well, so here’s the list, and a couple of pics of my usual work. What I’m hoping for is some realistic images to use to create, okay, so I’ll be making little fondant or candied pieces for the cake?” He tapped one of the pictures. “You know, personalized cake toppers like a traditional bride-and-groom pair, only that suits this couple. It doesn’t have to be everything, just a fair starting point so I can show them sketches when they come back on Tuesday.”

Maria took the list and scanned it. Well. _Comprehensive_ would be one word. But seriously, who wanted a sex swing on their... “Okay, so I think they might be testing you.”

“Testing me how?”

“Seeing if they scare you off with a crazy-ass list of every extreme thing they can think of.”

“Well, I don’t scare that easy.” He squared his shoulders as he said it, even though he was blushing again. 

“Good to know.” She ran her finger down the list. “I don’t know anyone who’s into _all_ these things, but even if I did, a lot of them are pretty far from ordinary. Plus, choosing a few things and doing them well might serve you better anyway. We definitely have the actual materials here, if what you need is reference models?”

“Yeah, see, I noticed that. In the research I did so far--” he pointed a finger at her when she snorfled. “Shush, it’s still research even if it’s bad internet pornos. Anyway, it’s just all a little overwhelming. For example, okay, I don’t even know how one would represent some of this on a cake without just making a bunch of big dicks. Like, sounding? Which so far, based on my googling, I have not even tried to watch.” 

“Well, you _could_ do something with that one. One of those things with a smaller main cake and a lot of cupcakes? Like cakepops, only dickpops. There are a lot of things that might be kind of complicated to make, bu there are lot that are easy, right?”

He shrugged. “I guess? Handcuffs are probably handcuffs?”

“And you have a million colors of food coloring, so probably you can make them purple with leopard print or something.”

Clint stuck his head in the door. “Purple handcuffs would be rad, by the way.”

“You just want personalized ones of your very own,” Maria said, tossing a balled-up paper towel. “Also, quit listening in.”

“Occupational hazard,” Clint said.

“You guys listen to people while they, like, do they do stuff here?” Steve looked back and forth. “That seems kind of sketchy.”

“Says the guy who wants porn lessons so he doesn’t fuck up a wedding cake,” Clint said.

“There are a couple of rooms, monitors at the desk,” Maria said. “I mostly avoid watching except to make sure no one’s getting hurt on the premises—they gotta take that shit somewhere else—but Clint, he’s a different story.”

“I’m a different everything,” Clint said with a broad grin. “I like to keep people guessing.”

“About everything but purple,” Maria said. “Purple is your north star. Now get out.”

Clint saluted in the laziest way possible and went past the door, apparently on some kind of circuit of the store.

“You guys, um, are you a couple?”

“Me and him? Um, no. So much no. He goes home to a lethal redhead who doesn’t share well, and whom I like. He doesn’t even usually work here, actually. He’s more of a temp.”

Steve nodded. “You just seem to know him pretty well.”

“From a different, previous, professional context,” Maria said. “But back to your cake, because if we’re not talking about that any more I’m not sure what you’re still doing here since discussing my love life with someone I’ve known for twenty minutes seems like something I wouldn’t do.”

“Yeah, I get that – working in a sex shop or whatever doesn’t mean you gotta, so okay. The cake. What else?”

“What, what else?”

“What else should I choose? Like, what else would be easy? We said handcuffs. You have those whip things out front...”

“I don’t know, leather harnesses? Ropes? Assorted paddles and straps? Maybe pick a few and do your sketches, see what they say. It looks like you know how to personalize the little people, so it’s just the other stuff, and you can even make a sex dungeon cake with no one using the toys if you’re worried about whatever weird ideas you might get from porn that isn’t necessarily realistic.”

Steve nodded. “Anything I should particularly stay away from?”

“No, it’s all pretty much all about niches and 

“Okay. Thanks for letting a stranger freak out at you about sex things,” Steve said. He shook his head. “The cakepop idea is actually really good, and pretty doable in a short time frame, so thanks for that, too.”

“You’re welcome. I think. I guess I can’t judge without seeing the final product, but I mean.”

“Oh, you’re invited. Things I never would have realized I needed for wedding cakes: dickpop molds. Although I guess if they really want a sounding cake, that probably _is_ the way to do it.”

Maria fought off a guffaw at the image of a phalanx of happy dicks surrounding a lovely traditional tiered cake – and he did seem to do pretty nice work; one of the photos in her hand was clearly an autumn cake, with falling leaves in golds and scarlets; another had a little pair on top in wheelchairs on top of an incredibly nerdy (and very detailed) Dr. Who-style police box – and said, “You could even have, like, clear sticky syrup goo where the stick meets the hole. You know, for--”

“Yeah, I get it,” he said, flushing again. “I assume there’s actually porn I could watch for a sense of, like, how that might look?”

“There is, but it’s probably not hard to imagine. If you like it, it might make you physiologically respond, but of course it’d make it kind of hard to actually come.”

“Right. Well. On that note...” Steve stood up and held out his hand for the list. “Thanks again for your help, especially after the awkward start.”

“And the completely unawkward, ordinary rest of the conversation,” Maria said.

“Well yeah, but I only accidentally suggested you might be a prostitute at the beginning, so.” He ran his hand through his hair and shoved his list back in his pocket. “Anyway. Come by. I have cake. Besides this cake, I mean.”

“You said. And pastries, éclairs, and lots of muffins.”

“Right. Don’t forget the sugar cookies, but also you should definitely get to see the prototypes and stuff. Is it OK if I snap a couple pictures on my way out? Not people, just stuff that’s actually up for sale here?”

She shrugged. “No skin off my nose.”

“You’re the best. Also, your lip ring seems to be coming ...off?”

She put her hand to it quickly. Damn it. “Yeah, it looks right for this job, man, but I don’t really want holes in my lips.” 

“Well, you look fine either way, so there’s that.”

He went out the door and she went to the mirror to fix the ring, looking out the window to see when he left and watch him jog across the street and out of range of the streetlight.

If she was going to work undercover in a Pornmart, at least she’d gotten a good story out of it.


End file.
